[Update #49: Water, Trees, Day/Night, Lighting... All That Jazz]

Great work - it'll be interesting to see how you are going to handle more urban areas - docks for instance.

[Dialog system]

What is interesting to me is the ways Obsidian might display dialogue and the ways skills will be involved. Please don't tell me if a choice is going to "work" or not.

 

I think that without any of the special modes on, you will see the threshold (whether a choice is going to "work" or not), but if you enable Expert mode, you won't see it (and a lot of other "helper" information).

 

Depending on how moddable the game ends up being, that might be your only choice.

[Please no more "go here" quest markers!]

and a mark on our map that gives the general location where the next step in the quest should occur and I am happy.

That's... a questmarker.

So, no.

 

I think that depends on your definition of "general location".

 

If you mean right over the NPC/item no matter the situation, then yes, you are right it is a Quest marker in the way that you dislike, if it's over the forest where you have to find the lost cabin (and the NPC pointed out that it was in that forest) or the general market area where you are told the caravan master is resupplying his food stores, then I personally think it's fine.

 

For me it depends on context: If there is someone knowns exactly where something is, then I have no problem with the location being precise, if they have a general idea, then the general area should be marked, and if they have no clue then I guess I will have to figure it out myself. Finding a lost trinket and then immediately knowing who owned it, and where they are, for instance, is not something I would like in this game.

 

If you rail again the very idea that there should be any form of marker update on your map when you are given your next objective in a quest chain (even when it makes perfect sense for the NPC to mark it on your map or there is a perfectly clear description of where it is, so it would make sense the PC marked it on his map), then I guess we just have different tastes.

[Please no more "go here" quest markers!]

You know, if the NPC says let me mark it on your map, let it appear on the map. If you're given explicit directions, mark it on the map. In an isometric game that's not a sand box like oblivion etc, there really shouldn't need to be the compass with points of interest marked out.

 

Yeah, give me a descriptive Journal entry (preferably in a Journal where quests are easy to sort and navigate) and a mark on our map that gives the general location where the next step in the quest should occur and I am happy.

[New Game +]

I would rather not see a New Game+ in this kind of game unless there is a good reason why.

 

I rarely use the New Game+ feature, and for these kinds of games I would rather roll a new character to experience the game from another perspective.

[Alignment?]

 

Reputation will be localized and not global, I suspect, because the devs have stated that there will be factions. That means it will be possible to be "heroic" to one faction but quite a villain to another--how companions react will depend heavily on their backstories and your finer choices. The quick of it is that there (most probably) won't be global reputation tied to alignment reaction, because there is neither alignment nor a generic global reputation.

 

Also:

Steve: Can you talk a little about the reputation system which you are developing? How will you handle cause and effect in the wider world of Project Eternity?

 

Feargus: Our reputation system will be similar to what players may have seen in Fallout: New Vegas. As you interact with people in the world' date=' you start to generate a variety of reputations, positive and negative, with the world’s factions and communities. The system tracks both good and bad impressions, so if you save a basket of kittens from a burning house and later punch an old lady in the face, your reputation in that community is not “neutral”, it’s “mixed”.

 

People from those communities will react to you based on your reputation, but it isn’t always a case of “positive rep” = “good times”. Sometimes being disliked by one group may actually cause another group to approach you favourably. And being liked by a group may result in their enemies coming after you — even if you’ve never done anything to harm them directly.

[/quote']

 

Source:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CDcQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gamebanshee.com%2Fnews%2F109775-project-eternity-interview-and-qaa.html&ei=qf2CULuVHpCVswbd0oHoAg&usg=AFQjCNFyJ_Moz_I_jXskwNqOm3XLD4j-Iw&sig2=kjkN0_cIIUgL_Mdazi0nJQ&cad=rja

[The Obsidian Order of Eternity wants YOU! part 4]

Right, lets do this.

 

I dub myself "Night Stalker - Cynic of the Obsidian Order".